High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Criterion Collection is a video distribution company that sells "important classic and contemporary films" in "editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements."Janus Films and the Voyager Company established The Criterion Collection in 1984 as a privately held company concentrating exclusively upon the North American home video market. Between 1984 and 1998, Criterion published home video releases in Laserdisc format, pioneering now-standard home video features such as letterboxing, audio commentary tracks, and other supplemental content. In 1998 Criterion shifted from Laserdiscs into the then-fledgling DVD market. All of Criterion`s Laserdisc releases have since gone out of print. Criterion was slow to expand into high-definition releases, partly due to the HD format wars between Blu-ray and HD DVD. Once Blu-ray had emerged as the industry-standard high-definition home video format, Criterion expanded into releasing Blu-ray editions of select films from its collection. The company has also expanded into online distribution, through an online video on demand rental service in partnership with The Auteurs.